Measure by Measure

Thomas Südhof, who is a joint winner of the nobel prize in medicine and physiology this year, credits his success to his childhood bassoon teacher, "who taught me that the only way to do something right is to practice and listen and practice and listen, hours, and hours, and hours."

A related article at the Atlantic Monthly surveys several ongoing studies about how musical training, especially in early childhood, changes the brain.

“The fact that music engages so much in the brain—including regions we think of as important for language, memory, motor control, executive function and emotion—raises the question of how it interacts with these other activities,” says Patel. It’s not surprising, Patel says, to find that violinists, who make intricate movements with the fingers on their left hand, have enhanced fine motor function and corresponding changes in the regions of the brain that govern left-handed finger control. What’s more surprising is that music training actually enhances the way the brain processes language." 

Not only does music-making activate many different regions of the brain, but it can actually help to shape the brain itself. “We now know the brain is an organ that changes with experience,” Patel says, “and music has an impact on brain structure.” That impact appears to be strongest when music training begins in early childhood, when the brain is developing the most rapidly and multiple new connections are being formed. According to Patel, children’s brains show evidence of faster development when they are learning to play an instrument. And studies comparing the brains of adult musicians and non-musicians find the most pronounced enhancements in brain structure in those who began their music training early in childhood. Musicians’ brains have increased grey matter, which is involved in processing, as well as increased white matter, which is comprised of the connective fibers that link disparate parts of the brain. Several studies have also found that the musician’s brain tends to have a larger corpus callosum, which plays an important role in the communication between the left and right sides of the brain.

Though these studies are far from over, researchers, as well as the parents and teachers of the study subjects, are already noticing a change in the kids who are studying music. Preliminary results suggest that not only does school and community-based music instruction indeed have an impact on brain functioning, but that it could possibly make a significant difference in the academic trajectory of lower-income kids.

Unfortunately, these are the kids who typically have less access to quality music education programs. Though a 2012 U.S. Department of Education report found that some degree of music education was offered in the majority of public schools—94 percent of elementary schools and 91 percent of secondary schools—it also revealed an alarming disparity between the availability of music programs in high-poverty and low-poverty schools. The new crop of controlled, multi-year studies promises to further scientists’ understanding of how music training affects the brain, and in so doing, perhaps provide an impetus for social change.

The full article is worth a read.